186 henrik h. sørensen
classified as an Esoteric Buddhist work since the late Tang, one cannot
help noting that its only truly Esoteric Buddhist feature is the so-called
Śūraṅgama Spell, which is central to the scripture. Recent studies have
revealed that this spell has been assembled on the basis of authen-
tic dhāraṇī material.^20 Even so, the spell, as well as the ritual chapter
and the related practice, are detached from the scripture’s overall dis-
course, which is by and large exoteric in nature. This indicates that
the spell was grafted onto or inserted into the doctrinal message of the
scripture as a sort of “transcendental syllabus,” a magical condensa-
tion of its expressed meaning. Yet the text does not provide any clear
directions as to the use of the spell in the ritual procedure—something
that is normally not the case with mainstream ritual texts used in Eso-
teric Buddhist practice. Nevertheless, the Pseudo-Śūraṅgama became
immensely popular in China during the late Tang, and by the time
of the Northern Song it was one of the most widely studied Buddhist
scriptures among intellectuals in China.^21 The dhāraṇī was even pub-
lished separately for distribution among commoner Buddhists, and it
would seem that it was essentially the scripture’s spell that secured this
apocrypha its enduring popularity up to the present.^22
Apocryphal dhāraṇīs or spells deviate from dhāraṇīs in transcribed
Sanskrit on a number of important points. First, they do not carry any
meaning as Sanskrit text (although, of course, meaning was attributed
to them). They tend to be made up of nonsensical words or are simply
a string of phonetic characters meant to emulate the sound of the San-
skrit, much in the same way false dhāraṇīs were constructed by Chi-
nese Daoists in order to compete with the spells used by Buddhists.^23
Second, they do occasionally contain Chinese names or whole text
passages that reveal their true nature as indigenous Chinese creations.
(^20) The Śūraṅgama Spell, including its text in Siddham, can be found in the impor-
tant Esoteric Buddhist spell collection, the Shijiao zuishang sheng bimi zang tuoluoni
ji (Collection of the Secret Storehouse of Dhāran ̣īs of
the Highest Vehicle of Buddhism) included among the slabs of the stone-engraved
Tripitaka at Fangshan ̣. Cf. Zhonghua dazang jing , 1619.68:500–675.
(^21) It is known that the important literati Su Dongpo (1037–1101) studied
it. Cf. Grant 1994, 90–91, etc.
(^22) Here it is interesting to note that both the Guanding jing and the Pseudo-
Śūraṅgama became equally popular in Korea, whereas they seem to have enjoyed
almost no importance in Japan. 23
Spells of this type are commonly found in scriptures associated with the Lingbao
tradition.